Friday Fictioneersis hosted by the wonderful Rochelle, the undisputed master of what I call Sound Bite Fiction.
She sets the weekly challenge, and the standard.
This week’s inspirational photo is provided by Renee Heath.It reminds me of a short piece I wrote many years ago, on a topic near to my heart.This is it, reduced to fit.
The idea, as always, is to write a story of around 100 words based on this picture, below.

As Europeans colonised the New World, their treatment of the indigenous people was indefensible.
Genocide was carried out with indifference.
But another, more insidious practice, was perpetrated, well into the 20th Century.
Children were taken from their homes, never to see their parents again, cut off from their native culture, banned from speaking their own language.
They were kept in homes and educated in the ways, and the religions, of the conquerors.
This happened in the USA.
And in Canada, much of it under British rule.

But we don’t call this ethnic cleansing.
Oh no, that’s what bad people do.

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About ceayr

A Scot who has discovered Paradise in a small town he calls Medville on the Côte d'Azur, C.E. Ayr has spent a large part of his life in the West of Scotland and a large part elsewhere.
His first job was selling programmes at his local football club and he has since tried 73 other career paths, the longest being in IT, with varying degrees of success.
He is somewhat nomadic, fairly irresponsible and, according to his darling daughter, a bit random.

I watched a documentary on ancient art the other day, marvelling at the fact there are still Aboriginal people versed in their own traditions, in their own legends, when Western culture seemed so determined to wipe their history out. Another episode in our shameful history, C, and you wrote on the subject with passion and compassion

Thank you, Lynn, I am happy that my words touch you. This is a subject close to my heart, perhaps because of the atrocities perpetrated upon the Highland clans by our own – British – government after the second Jacobite rebellion. And the more I talk to Americans, Canadians, Australians, et al, the more I understand this was a standard tactic of our rulers for centuries.

Such a practice was cruel. At the same time children who had seen better life in terms of education and material benefit, could have been asked to work for the welfare of their people. May be things could have been done in a different way. I am not condoning what was done.

We can also call it identity theft. Yes, we were on a similar path this time. It can’t be written enough as far as I’m concerned. My only consolation is that my folks were in Eastern Europe enduring persecution. The most dangerous animal is human. Well done.

it’s always a matter of “us” or “them”. I played “Indians” when I was a kid with my brother and his friends. The winner is now the culprit but the Indians weren’t angels either. Separating kids from their parents is still a present practice. Will we ever learn? Your story is sharp. Great stuff. (from threefoldtwenty dotcom)